Drilling for exploration and recovery is often done using drilling fluids to entrain the drill chips. Drill chippings may be screened out of the fluids either to recover the fluids for recycling for their own value or to simply maintain water balance. In either case there remain the drill chippings that form a slurry or wet gravel of chippings of varying fluidity. These chippings need to be moved about. The chippings form a mass that is almost invariably highly abrasive, and possibly hot and chemically reactive.
Conventionally such products are moved by augers and conveyors. This has the disadvantage of the material not being highly constrained, and the apparatus have a high maintenance impost. Pumps of the impeller and diaphragm type are less than suitable due to the moving parts coming into contact with the abrasive mixtures, resulting in for example impeller and/or valve wear.
There is accordingly a need for a pump for such materials that has substantially no moving parts in contact with the materials to avoid or substantially ameliorate wear thereto.